The U.S. attorney who Trump installed in Washington, D.C. to end Jan. 6 prosecutions has spent the past several years outside of government pushing for exactly that.
Continue reading “Trump Installs Stop The Steal Booster To End Cases Against Jan. 6 Defendants”The Trump II Retribution Begins In Earnest
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
We Saw It Coming
While Trump’s retribution tour is performative, it is also substantive. Real people and real values hurt by the vengeful and vindictive policies and actions that thrill his supporters. A quick rundown of the most notable developments:
- “The Trump administration has removed and reassigned several top career officials in the Justice Department’s national security and criminal divisions, according to multiple people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.”–WaPo
- “Within hours of taking office, President Donald Trump terminated the Secret Service detail that was assigned to his former national security adviser John Bolton, Bolton confirmed to CNN on Tuesday.”–CNN
- Coast Guard commandant terminated over border lapses, recruitment, DEI focus”–Fox News
- “Trump orders all federal diversity, equity and inclusion employees placed on paid leave starting Wednesday.”–NBC News
It is way too early to know what else has transpired across the vast expanse of the federal government in the first 36 hours since Trump took office. Stay tuned.
Jan. 6 Pardons: Day 1
Simply an astounding reversal to the rule of law, the constitutional order, and civil society, with the mass release of hundreds of people convicted of what amounts to political violence:
- “As of Tuesday, 211 people—every clemency recipient—who had been in federal Bureau of Prisons custody had been released, officials said, a process that took roughly 12 hours.”–WSJ
- A rogue’s gallery of some of the most violent Jan. 6 rioters pardoned by Trump via NBC News
- Trump’s pardons led to the dismissal of a pending case against an alleged rioter who harassed police officers testifying in Jan. 6 cases.
- Witnesses in the Jan. 6 cases, including police officers, began getting automatic notifications from the Justice Department that the defendants they had testified against are being released from prison. In some instances, that meant multiple notifications for a single witness.
- Outside the DC jail, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) angled to be the first member of Congress to offer released Jan. 6 rioters “a guided tour of the Capitol.”
Reax To The Jan. 6 Pardons
- NBC News: “People in the Justice Department and legal scholars are calling the move an unprecedented and dangerous use of the pardon power that dealt a crushing blow not just to federal law enforcement, but also to the U.S. justice system. They say it makes a mockery of years of work by FBI agents, prosecutors and federal judges, some of whom Trump appointed, after an effort that included charges against 1,583 defendants, more than 1,000 guilty pleas and more than 200 convictions at trial. Some worry it signals open season for political violence — given that 608 of those charged were accused of assaulting, resisting or impeding law enforcement agents or officers — while others fret about the marker laid down for future presidents.”
- Randall Eliason: “This is a blueprint for a lawless administration that knows it will not be held accountable for criminal acts. That would include, of course, crimes committed to interfere with the next presidential election to allow the party, if not Trump himself, to stay in power. Trump’s team came very close to overturning the 2020 election. No doubt they have learned some lessons and will not repeat the same mistakes.”
Mapping The Jan. 6 Cases
A final rundown on the geographic dispersion of the Jan. 6 defendants.
A New Corrupt Trump Pardon
In pardoning Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the illegal online drug marketplace the Silk Road, Donald Trump openly admitted to ill motives, declaring that he was doing it in part to honor the “Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly.”
The Proud Boys Are Back
“The cascading effects of pardoning some 1,500 insurrectionists remain to be seen. But to researchers, activists and reporters covering extremism in America, the implication was clear: Political violence will be tolerated, and even rewarded, when it’s carried out on behalf of Trump.”–HuffPost
Elon Musk Watch
Take it from right-wing extremists: They loved, in the muted language of the Associated Press, Elon Musk’s “straight-arm gesture.”
Aileen Cannon Still At It
On the first full day of the Trump administration, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon blocked the Justice Department from sharing the Mar-a-Lago volume of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report with members of Congress.
Trump II Clown Show
- WSJ: Hegseth Routinely Passed Out From Alcohol Abuse, Witness Says
- NYT: Senate Questionnaire Sheds Light on Kash Patel’s Early Years
Quote Of The Day
“We are, quite frankly, the dominant predator…”–Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN), on Fox Business talking about America’s Manifest Destiny to obtain Greenland
Making Sense Of The Trump Executive Orders
- Mark Nevitt at Just Security: Unpacking Trump’s Executive Order on National Emergency at the Southern Border
- Charlie Savage: “[Trump] not only revived some of the same expansive understandings of executive authority that were left unaddressed [from Trump I], but went even further with new claims of sweeping and inherent constitutional clout.”
- WSJ: “Pentagon officials are planning options for using federal troops to secure the U.S.-Mexico border against drug traffickers, human smugglers and migrants, a potentially major shift in military priorities ordered by President Trump, officials said Tuesday.”
Pushing Back Against Trump
- States and advocacy groups have already filed four lawsuits to block implementation of Trump’s executive order purporting to end birthright citizenship.
- The first hearing in those cases is likely to be in Seattle in front of U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, an 83-year-old Reagan appointee.
- The National Treasury Employees Union has sued to block Trump’s executive order reimposing Schedule F and limiting civil service protections.
Memorable
Mariann Edgar Budde, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C., addressed President Trump directly during a prayer service Tuesday at National Cathedral, beseeching him to show mercy to the people he is marginalizing, including immigrants and people who identify as LGBTQ:
Vice President J.D. Vance’s squirming and sneering was notable, as was the refusal of his wife to engage with him.
Trump went off on the bishop overnight, calling her “ungracious,” “nasty,” and “not compelling or smart.”
It was the reaction of Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), though, that was most indicative of the current moment: He publicly called for the bishop to be deported.
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Inside The Farce Of Swaying Republican Senators On Trump’s Nominees
The “blockbuster” hearings on Donald Trump’s most unavoidably unfit Cabinet nominees feel completely hollow.
Continue reading “Inside The Farce Of Swaying Republican Senators On Trump’s Nominees”Day Two
After a morning meeting, I sat down to my computer around 11:30 a.m. ET and read two reader emails picked more or less at random out of my inbox. The first was from an American expat. The gist of his email was that American liberals — Blue America, for lack of a better descriptor — are totally unprepared for what’s coming down the pike toward them. The second was from a federal government employee reviewing the executive orders relevant to the federal workforce and explaining to me in so many words, ‘yeah, good luck with that.’ The expat’s email was generally more pessimistic and totalizing than I’m inclined to be. You may differ and you may be right; who knows? But in general the two emails together captured the moment as well or better than any report, essay or interview I might have read — a mix of actions and red flags almost unimaginable by any normal standard (though in virtually every case unsurprising) mixed with an underbrush of the sheer size, inertia and difficulty of whatever changes Trump is trying to make. They’re both true. Both true at once.
Continue reading “Day Two”With Trump Pardons, The Jan. 6 Coup Attempt Is Finally Complete
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
A Dark Day
In one of his first acts of his second term, Donald Trump granted sweeping pardons to nearly all of the convicted Jan. 6 rioters and instigators and commuted the sentences of 14 of those serving the longest sentences, including on the most serious charge: seditious conspiracy.
Trump also ordered the Justice Department to end pending prosecutions of Jan. 6 defendants, an extraordinary and unprecedented interference with the department’s independence, and a foreshadowing of DOJ being run from the White House.
Among those freed were former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and Oath Keepers honcho Stewart Rhodes. Overnight, Rhodes was seen leaving prison:
The acts of clemency from Trump brought full circle the conspiracy to subvert the 2020 election and hold on to power regardless of the election results. The spasm of violence on Jan. 6, 2021, was a neither a beginning nor an end but rather an inflection point in Trump’s fantastical, long-running Big Lie.
The pardons and commutations reinvigorate a slew of paramilitary right-wing extremist groups and other long-marginalized figures who see Trump as the their de facto leader and inspiration. Proud Boys returned to DC on Inauguration Day and were seen marching in the streets before the pardons were issued.
The Weaponization Begins
Under the guise of “ending the weaponization of the federal government,” President Trump by executive order has created a mechanism for weaponizing the intelligence community and the Justice Department – and it runs through Stephen Miller.
The Destruction Begins
- “The Pentagon on Monday removed a portrait of Gen. Mark A. Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from a corridor of the building filled with paintings of all of his predecessors.”–NYT
- “President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday revoking the security clearance of 51 former intelligence officials who signed a 2020 letter arguing that emails from a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden carried ‘all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation’ and that of his former national security adviser John Bolton.”–CNN
- “Trump administration quickly removes top immigration court officials.”–WaPo
Trump’s Executive Order Flex
A reminder that the executive orders are a combination of substantive and basically glorified press releases. Deborah Pearlstein offers a primer on how to tell the difference. Among the notable ones:
- “President Trump on Monday signed an executive order to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, the pact among almost all nations to fight climate change.”–NYT
- “President Donald Trump has ordered the federal government to stop all permits for wind energy projects.”–Heatmap
- “President Trump declared on Monday that his government would no longer treat the U.S.-born children of undocumented people as citizens, signaling his intent to essentially ignore the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship in a move that is all but certain to invite a legal challenge.”–NYT
- Adopting some of the most strident anti-immigration language, Trump declares that “an invasion is ongoing at the southern border.”
Trump II Clown Show
- Politico: How Musk helped boot Ramaswamy from DOGE
- Longtime Missouri Republican Ed Martin, an advocate for the Jan. 6 rioters, has been named interim U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C.
- A rundown from the Trump White House of the new chairs and acting chairs of various agencies, commissions, and boards.
Oligarch Watch
The images speak for themselves, but a couple of additional notes: The big tech executives had a more prominent position for Trump’s swearing-in than some of his cabinet nominees, and unlike members of Congress they could bring their spouses.
Image Of The Day
The news service caption above leaves a lot to be desired: “gestures.” TPM’s Josh Marshall on Elon Mush going full Sieg Heil.
Senate Starts Moving Trump Nominees
- On a 99-0 vote, the Senate confirmed Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) as secretary of state.
- On a 14-13 vote, the Senate Armed Service Committee advanced the nomination of Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense.
- On a 13-2 vote, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved the nomination of Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) as DHS secretary.
- On a 14-3 vote, the Senate Intelligence Committee advanced the nomination of John Ratcliffe as CIA director.
- On a 8-7 vote, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee cleared the nomination of Russell Vought as OMB director.
Vibe Check: Forced, Insipid, And Credulous
Forced:
Biden to Trump: "Welcome home"
— Nikki McCann Ramírez (@nikkimcr.bsky.social) January 20, 2025 at 9:59 AM
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Insipid:
It is time to look to the future. The challenges that face America are many and great. The Senate must respond with resolve, bipartisanship, and fidelity to the working and middle class of this country.
— Chuck Schumer (@schumer.senate.gov) January 20, 2025 at 6:53 PM
Credulous:
This is a delicate moment. It’s a new day and yet so many are on edge. Our politics are inflamed, and social media only adds to the anxiety.
— ADL (@ADL) January 20, 2025
It seems that @elonmusk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute, but again, we appreciate that people are on…
Kumbaya
The contrast between how liberals see Democratic opposition to Trump as feckless and how MAGA Republicans portray Democrats as all-powerful traitorous conspirators always carries some cognitive dissonance but rarely as much as yesterday:
Marjorie Taylor Greene: "These people would line us up in front of a firing squad & kill us if they could. We know exactly who the Democrats are … Democrats, until you start writing big checks to Republicans & start voting Republican … then we can start talking about unity."
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) January 20, 2025 at 2:11 PM
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Elon Goes Full Sieg Heil In Clarifying Moment
I was at the gym this afternoon when I saw out of the corner of my eye Elon Musk giving an exuberant speech at one of the Trump inauguration’s events. I was listening to something else on my AirPods. Then, only a few moments later, in a moment of exuberant disinhibition he gave what was unmistakably a sieg heil! salute. Then he did it again. He actually appeared to do it three separate times. I took out my AirPods and tried to see if there was going to be any comment on CNN on what we’d just seen. I wondered whether this might somehow have been a weird angle or something. I commented on BlueSky asking, rhetorically, if we’d all just seen what we just saw. It wasn’t a weird angle.
This is one of those cases where it’s helpful to have been to this rodeo one time before.
Continue reading “Elon Goes Full Sieg Heil In Clarifying Moment”Trump Officially Sworn Into Office
The second Donald Trump presidency has officially begun.
In a speech running about 30 minutes long, he promised day one action on immigration, to seize the Panama Canal (while somehow being a peacemaker president) and to instruct his Cabinet to “defeat inflation.”
Catch up on our live coverage below:
Milley Responds
Gen. Mark A. Milley responds to Biden pardon: “My family and I are deeply grateful for the President’s action today. After forty-three years of faithful service in uniform to our Nation, protecting and defending the Constitution, I do not wish to spend whatever remaining time the Lord grants me fighting those who unjustly might seek retribution for perceived slights.”
TPM Reader JE flagged the statement to me.
A Moment of Calm
I’m not one to tell people how they should react to or experience things. But for me I’m taking all of this in with a serene impassivity. They won. They’re entitled to their day. The Trump people have been signaling for days that they’re going to hit the ground running with what they describe as an executive “shock and awe.” I don’t see any reason to be shocked or awed. I don’t say this in any grand metaphysical sense. I mean that I’ve seen headstrong winners of close elections high on their own supply before. As I wrote a couple weeks ago, all of this is meant to hit you with so much sensory stimulus that you become overwhelmed. But the images you see wrapped around you in an iMax theater aren’t real. It’s still a movie.
Note this “for the ages” picture, above, of Jeff Bezos with the CEOs of Meta, Google and Apple from left to right, at an inaugural service feting Donald Trump this morning at St. John’s church across the street from the White House. You may not have a billion dollars but your dignity is all yours. No one can take it from you. Compared to some you can already be ahead of the game.
One step at a time. They’re not as big as they look.
Continue reading “A Moment of Calm”Biden Issues Preemptive Pardons Against Trump Retribution
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Not Normal
On his final day in office, President Joe Biden granted preemptive pardons to several high-profile political targets of incoming President Donald Trump.
Biden pardoned:
- retired Army General Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff;
- Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who led the government’s response to the COVID pandemic;
- the members and staff of the House Jan. 6 committee;
- the police officers who testified before the Jan. 6 committee.
The attempt to protect current and former government officials, including sitting members of Congress, from abusive political retribution and a weaponized Trump II Justice Department was an extraordinary marker of the erosion of the rule of law and democratic norms in the United States.
“[T]hese are exceptional circumstances, and I cannot in good conscience do nothing,” Biden said.
Biden’s pardons were issued just hours before his predecessor was set to be sworn as his successor. Biden had continued to try to observe some of the pomp and circumstance of a presidential transition, keeping traditions like hosting the incoming president at the White House and attending the inauguration, but the pardons and other preemptive efforts to blunt a rogue Trump II administration create a taut public scene on inauguration day.
In issuing the pardons, Biden explicitly noted that they should not signify that the recipients engaged in any wrongdoing. It is not clear whether all of this morning’s recipients will accept the presidential pardons.
LIVE: Trump’s Swearing-In Ceremony
The ironies today abound: Trump being sworn in on the national holiday that honors Martin Luther King, Jr., and in the Capitol Rotunda that a mob of MAGA followers desecrated on Jan. 6, 2021.
TPM will be providing live coverage beginning at 11 a.m. ET.
Transition Tidbits
- President Biden spent his last full day in office in South Carolina, which was key to his securing the Democratic nomination in 2020. Speaking at a Black church, Biden urged Americans to “keep the faith.”
- Trump’s second inaugural address reportedly will be less dark than his notorious 2017 “American Carnage” shitshow.
- TPM’s Josh Kovensky: MAGA, MAHA, And Lots Of Crypto: Which Trump Inaugural Ball Is Right For You?
Day One Of Trump II
I want to caution that many of the expected first day acts of President Trump are going to be more symbolic than substantive. The executive orders in particular are probably best viewed as a combination of real executive orders and press releases gussied up as executive orders. Still, performative hatred towards transgender Americans, people of color, and other vulnerable groups can both be of little legal weight and still carry enormous costs and consequences.
- Conflicting reports on whether the Trump administration will immediately conduct a large-scale immigration raid in Chicago this week.
- An anti-trans executive order is reportedly in the works.
- NYT: Trump Will Strip Protections from Career Civil Servants, Stephen Miller Says
- WaPo: Elon Musk’s DOGE to be sued within minutes of Trump inauguration for allegedly failing to comply with a 1972 law governing executive branch advisory committees
Early Data Points
- Forced resignations at State: “Scores of senior career diplomats are resigning from the State Department effective at noon on Monday after receiving instructions to do so from President-elect Donald Trump’s aides, three U.S. officials familiar with the matter said.”
- Gov’t scientists hunker down: “Agencies and unions have put in place new guardrails designed to limit political interference in government research.”
- Sign of the times: “The New York Times contacted more than two dozen of Mr. Trump’s most outspoken critics and perceived enemies to ask about their level of concern. Despite having spoken out in the past or having participated in proceedings against him, almost all declined to address their worries publicly, saying speaking out now could make them even more conspicuous targets.”
How To Pay Attention
Democracy advocate Ben Raderstorf offers four criteria for prioritizing where to allocate your limited attention for politics in the Trump II chaos:
- Is the action tangible, actionable, and detailed? Or intangible, abstract, and vague?
- Does this thing cause irreparable harm to real people?
- Does this action target the opposition in a way that may cause anticipatory obedience?
- Does this entrench the authoritarian faction in power and make it more difficult to dislodge?
Corruption Watch
- WSJ: With a corporate merger review looming, executives of the owner of CBS are reportedly considering settling a bogus Trump lawsuit over a 60 Minutes‘ interview with Kamala Harris.
- NYT: “President-elect Donald J. Trump and his family on Friday started selling a cryptocurrency token featuring an image of Mr. Trump drawn from the July assassination attempt, a potentially lucrative new business that ethics experts assailed as a blatant effort to cash in on the office he is about to occupy again.”
- NYT: An Illustrated Guide to Trump’s Conflict of Interest Risks
The Perils Of Economic Concentration
This is a moment. It's a powerful articulation of the problem with #cyberbarons consolidating government and economic power and the potential response — genesis of a populist antitrust, anti-monopoly movement. Could appeal beyond partisan divides. @raskin.house.gov with @chrislhayes.bsky.social
— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw.bsky.social) January 17, 2025 at 9:55 PM
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Aileen Cannon’s Closing Scene
Former TPMer Tierney Sneed: “Judge Aileen Cannon suggested Friday she was not inclined to allow the Justice Department to share special counsel Jack Smith’s report on the classified documents case with Congress – at least for now.”
Surreal
Former TPMer Ryan Reilly recorded an unscripted moment Friday that serves as a fitting end to the Biden presidency:
This morning, I was chatting with Mike Fanone as he walked into his sixth Jan. 6 sentencing hearing, and Judge Tanya Chutkan emerged from the courthouse with the security detail she has with her all the time as the result of the threats she received because she oversaw Donald Trump's D.C. case.
— Ryan J. Reilly “paints a vivid and urgent portrait of… disarray” (@ryanjreilly.com) January 17, 2025 at 7:39 PM
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